Vettel expects stronger Ferrari on Saturday

The German topped the morning session before dropping down to fourth in the afternoon, but his FP1 time was just 0.029s off the benchmark set by Mercedes rival Nico Rosberg in FP2.

Vettel admitted the second session had been harder, but he remains confident that Ferrari will be stronger tomorrow.

"I think this afternoon was a bit more tricky," said Vettel. "Not as good as the morning, but I think still we can work on the car, improve overnight, we are strong at doing that.

"Even if today was not the perfect day, I think it should be okay.

"The first impression of the pace today was good, but we can confirm it tomorrow: but it depends on what other people were doing today. I believe we can make a step and have a stronger Ferrari.

"Obviously, we need to confirm not just today, we need to confirm especially tomorrow and Sunday."

Teammate Kimi Raikkonen also had a positive day, finishing the afternoon session in second place behind Rosberg, but concedes it is too early to get carried away.

"It is Friday. We do our normal stuff and had small glitches here and there today but we managed to do what we wanted," he said.

"For sure we have to work on things as every Friday of every race weekend. We try to improve a bit more and see what we can do tomorrow."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble